Oven Baked French Cruller Donuts

Recently a friend of mine reminded me of cruller donuts when we were having a conversation about our favorite kinds of donuts. I used to love going to this little Belgium Bakery in town because they made the best donuts. My favorite of them all were the French Crullers. You had to get there first thing in the morning on Saturday if you wanted to get one because they sold out fast!

I began to wonder if it was possible to bake them instead of fry. I have other donut recipes that I absolutely love that I bake in the oven like Old Fashioned Sour Cream Donuts & Vanilla Cake Donuts. I was very excited to read that the pâte à choux pastry dough that is used to make cruller donuts bakes well in the oven! Yes! The next day I whipped up a batch of Oven Baked French Cruller Donuts & I was satisfied with the results. They turned out very well in the oven & reminded me of the ones I used to get at the bakery.

The picture above shows the dough being made in the saucepan. You want it to get really thick & evaporate as much water from it as possible because your going to add 3 eggs still & it will make it wet. The photo on the left above shows the film you get on the bottom of the saucepan when your evaporating the water. The photo on the right shows what the dough looks like after using a mixer to add the 3 eggs.

Update: I’ve been getting a lot of feedback from this recipe. Seems like most are people are telling me they like it as is. Others have suggested adding 2 Tablespoons of sugar for a sweeter dough. I think the glaze gives it it’s sugary sweetness. Some say they want a more eggy flavor & wanted to add another egg white. For me the dough would have been too watery to do that but you could try making adjustments to the recipe. The one below is just the one that I liked.

I used pancake mix in lieu of flour. I then followed the recipe up through the dough stage and put flattened dough in my waffle iron. These waffles turned out extra light and a little spongy, but oh, so delicious!

Just thought I’d comment on these. I made them with King Arthur Gluten Free All Purpose Flour today and they came out perfect. VERY good! So they work well with gluten free flour! Couldn’t even tell they were gluten free.

Cooked the dough for quite awhile and never got the film….these turned out like flat hockey pucks. I clearly didn’t get all the moisture out of the dough. How long does that step usually take? Does it matter that I was using a non-stick pan?

Hi Missy I’m sorry they didn’t turn out for you. Using a non-stick coated sauce pan could have been part of the problem. I use stainless steel when I make it so it’s easier to tell when it is done. It takes about 5 min. on medium-low heat to evaporate the moisture. I’m not sure how long you cooked yours for.

Just made these (even though the comments all made me nervous), and I am so glad I did!!! This recipe is perfect and I wouldn’t change a thing. If you follow the instructions to a “T” they should turn out just like in the blog photos. Also, I think the people claiming these aren’t sweet enough maybe have never had a cruller? Because they are perfectly sweet…I can’t imagine them having any more sugar in the actual donut, especially not once you factor in the glaze. Thanks for the great recipe, I will be using it often!

These are wonderful! And, big plus, they freeze fantastically! I flash froze them on a cookie sheet and put into a Ziploc bag. I take them out a few at a time, and heat them for 8 minutes in my NuWave oven on the 3 inch rack. I don’t always have time to make the glaze, so I just melt some butter in the microwave, pour it over the crullers, and sprinkle with some cinnamon sugar…Fantastic!

I’ve made these doughnuts twice now an the flavor is fantastic. The first time I followed the recipe exactly and although tasty they were rather dense. The second time I used self rising flour and they we’re light and fluffy and had those wonderful air pockets. Needless to say I’ll be sticking with the alteration. Thank you for a wonderful recipe. I do love them. Now off to eat the other six.